What is content validity?

The content validity refers to determining the adequacy of the sampling which the test results are analysed. The objective of content validity is to determine the extent to which a set of the tasks provides a relevant and representative sample of the relevant language skill, which is aimed to be tested, about which interpretations of test results are made. Content validity is not based on only one personal judgement, it requires judgements from experts who have mastered the language skills aimed to be tested. Those people are ready to be believed and trusted although they have opposing analysis towards each other. For example, a different linguistic experts use similar test item to test different linguistic aspects. Bachman uses his Test Methods Characteristics (TMC) Scale facets to assess the Cultural Reference in teaching language as general, while Clapham uses Bachmans TMC scales facets to test on comprehension texts. The test result and its effectiveness depend on the tester and the test users. What is internal validity? Internal validity links to studies of observable content of the test and its observable effects on the test users. The results produced represent the students achievement and are interpreted to identify the students language abilities. This is proven when the Communicative Language Testing (CLT) is introduced. Besides, its results have to come out with representative and adequate sampling of the test. The test takers are required to respond and give feedback when the test is being carried out. This is why face validation, content validation and response validation are the best ways to represent the internal validity. These validations, although they are not measureable and quantitative, give priority to students/test takers feedbacks, hence they are observable and qualitative. What is face validity? Face validity refers to the tests surface credibility or public acceptability. Usually, face validity involves an intuitive judgement about the test content by people who are not necessarily experts such as administrators, non-expert users and students. Face validity is not fixed because it does not follow certain rules or scales to measure. The validity depends on the lay people who do not master the linguistic aspect deeply. If the test takers consider a test to be valid, they are more likely to perform to the best of their ability on the test and to respond appropriately to test items. For example, the testers may interview or give questionnaires to the test takers to get feedback. One of the test validities is rational validity. Rational validity depends on a logical analysis of the tests content to see whether the test contains representative sample of the relevant language skills. A teacher may, for example, expect students to be able to spell the 200 words on a given list. Because a 200-word spelling test is too time consuming, the teacher may select a sample of 20 words to represent the total domain of 200 spelling words. If a student correctly spells 80% of these 20 words, we would like to be able to say that she can probably spell approximateiy 80% of the 200 words. Thus, we would like to be able to generalize from the student's performance on the sample of words in the test to the performance that the student would be expected to demonstrate on the domain of spelling words that the test represents. Next, empirical validity depends on empirical and statistical evidence as to whether students marks on the test are similar to their marks on other appropriate measures of their ability,

such as their scores on other tests, their self assessments or their teachers ratings on their ability. The teacher needs to form a relationship between the test carried out with the students performance outside the test. Finally, construct validation refers to what the test scores actually mean. The testers must formulate theories and predictions about the test and then test them out. Construct validity refers to a psychological construct, a theoretical conceptualization about an aspect of human behavior that cannot be measured and observed directly. For examples, intelligences, motivation, anxiety, attitudes and achievement are all constructive. These cannot be measured and observed directly. What is response validity? Response validity gathers information on how the students respond to test items. There is considerable current interest in gathering accounts from test takers on their test-taking behavior and thoughts. All the processes the students go through, the reasoning they engage in when responding are important indications to what the test is testing. The approach used is learner-centered if the data is gathered introspectively. All the introspective data is gathered retrospectively. After the test takers finish the test, an interview is conducted to get certain information from them which can easily be recalled. Their memories are still fresh and thus, they are able to give explanation to what they have done.

What is external validity? External validity is also known as criterion validity because the students scores are being compared to other criterion measures of their ability. This means the teacher will compare the test results with other results outside the test. The commonest types of external validity are concurrent and predictive validity, and the statistic most frequently used in the correlation coefficient. In the concurrent, the teacher needs to compare the results of the test with other measure for the same candidates taken during the test simultaneously. When the test is carried out, the teacher needs to observe the students other attitudes when doing the test. In predictive validity, the external measures will only be compared to the test results after some times after the test. The proficiency test is an example to this validity where it is used to predict how well someone will perform in the future. The proficiency test needs to be related to the previous test.